How using advanced data analytics can unveil what your customers want

Advanced data analytical tools like heatmaps and live recordings can help businesses learn what their customers want in far greater detail than ever before.

Customer satisfaction is at the heart of every business and the way we track the customer journey has improved dramatically thanks to the rise of online shopping and data analytics.

Most businesses have a website today, however simple website data analytics can only show a part of the bigger picture.

Advanced data analysis goes further though, following the exact steps taken by customers from their first interaction with your brand online through to the checkout and beyond.

Heatmaps and live recordings are two popular advanced data analytical tools that show businesses how customers interact with their website.

How heatmaps work

Heatmaps highlight where website visitors spend the most time on your website, as well as the spots that they ignore.

Heatmaps can reveal patterns of importance for businesses such as where visitors click the most and where they move their cursors around the site.

For example, if there are a lot of visitors hovering over just one small area on your site, they may be looking for more information. This may especially be the case if you offer a product and the customer is hovering over a certain section of the website but never progressing to the checkout. It could be that they are looking for more information on the product before deciding to go through with the purchase.

Businesses can also track how many people scroll all the way to the bottom of the page or where most people stop reading in case important details are being missed.

You can also segment your heatmaps into different groups like new and returning users to compare behaviours between your new and existing customers.

A couple of tools for heatmapping and recording data that we recommend include Hotjar and Crazy Egg.

How live recordings work

Live recordings show real video replays of how visitors navigate and interact with websites, allowing you to see your website through the customer’s eyes.

These replays can unveil user experience issues on your site by watching where your visitors click and move around the site.

While heatmaps can reveal patterns of behaviour among groups of users, live recordings specialise in providing more granular insights into a customer journey.

These details can guide businesses on how to organise website information and improve their overall user experience.

Getting started with advanced data analytics

Advanced data analytics can provide deep insights, but businesses need an effective marketing strategy to reap the most benefits from this data.

You first need to set up the basics like a website and branding and then establish regular activities like articles and social media posts to avoid wasting time and resources.